


Swept Away

by NorroenDyrd



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Bickering, Bodyguard Blackwall, Chubby Inquisitor, Diving, Drowning, F/M, Flirting, Innuendo, Inquisitor Backstory, Light-Hearted, Rescue, Sassy Inquisitor, Some Humor, Storm Coast (Dragon Age), Tongue-in-cheek, Underwater, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Water, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 13:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6755479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inquisitor Cadash is being her usual irresponsible self and decides that splashing about in the sea instead of meeting the Bull's Chargers would be an excellent idea. The resulting misadventure is destined to lead to bonding between herself and her grumpy, reluctant Warden babysitter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

'All right,' Cadash declares, as she shifts from side to side and then slides off the rock where she has been sitting, with her small feet swinging daintily over the glistening, rain-moistened grass, while the others were busy setting up camp.  
  
'You are done here, right? Now I wanna see the sea!'.  
  
Blackwall, who is still fiddling with one of the tent pegs, looks up at her from beneath knitted eyebrows. His expression - what can be seen of it among all of his wild hair, anyway - is sincerely incredulous; every single line on his forehead and around his eyes clearly spells out one thing: even if his life depended on it, he could not possibly have fathomed how on the Maker's green earth someone could be so irresponsible. Especially someone whose task was to lead their small group out here on a vital strategic mission; someone who is just about to make an important recruitment decision on behalf of the Inquisition; someone who people look up to as the bloody Herald of Andraste!  
  
'We are here to meet that Iron Bull character, remember?' he says at length, trying (not too successfully) to sound calm and patient. 'We can't have any distractions along the way. Remember what happened in the Hinterlands, when you went horse-racing instead of protecting the farmers from those damn rifts'.  
  
Cadash makes a loud, rather rude noise, as if blowing an invisible strand of hair out of her eyes. She certainly remembers what happened in the Hinterlands - but not the way Blackwall does. To him, it was a horrible failure to see to the common folk's safety the way they were supposed to - but to her, it was an exciting adventure. Ah, what a wonderful, exhilarating feeling: the cooling wind washing against her flushed skin in a torrential stream and whistling shrilly in her ears; the Fereldan steed (whose sleek, warm back is so broad that she can barely wrap her dwarven legs around it) leaping over logs and boulders - and, of course, all those demons, limping in her mount's wake, screeching and grunting and flailing their disproportionately long, gnarly arms in the air...   
  
Sure, the tag-alongs from the Fade ended up chasing her across just about the entire Redcliffe farmlands, and her horse might have trampled up some of the crops; well, quite a largish part, actually - to be more precise, kind of, sort of all of them. But the harvest would have been lost in any case, if the demons had started running amok... which they sort of did anyway. But - but! She did end up using her glowing hand thingy eventually, after a few fun-filled circles through the fields - and if she hadn't closed the rift, the, uh, amokness would have been far greater, right?   
  
And sure, there may have been some supply sheds set ablaze during her little race, when she decided to use her fancy new enchanted flaming bow and missed a demon just by a little bit, hitting some lopsided straw-thatched roof instead - and when the silly thing decided it was a good idea to share the golden, crackling fire with other roofs.   
  
But there was no-one inside any of these sheds! And her next shot hit the target - quite an achievement, too, seeing as she was doing it all on horseback! And - and the sheds were ugly anyway, and smelled of old wet straw and horse dung, so she wad doing their owners a favour - now they are gonna have a chance to build something pretty in their place!  
  
So, in all, that race turned out to be quite a wonderful experience - no reason to get all broody and pout into your beard! Especially if it's such a sweet, bushy beard like the good Warden's! She knows dwarves in the Carta that would kill for a beard like this - quite literally, oh yes; they would probably want to cut off his lovely big storm-cloudy head and shear off his impressive facial adornment like a trophy...   
  
Cadash attempts to voice all of these thoughts out loud - but before she gets too far, Blackwall cuts in with another persistent reminder: just three short words, which he articulates with deliberate stress.  
  
'The. Iron. Bull'.  
  
But, again, the dwarf refuses to see to her responsibilities.  
  
'Oh Bull Schmull,' she sings nonchalantly. 'We have plenty of time to catch up with him! I am sure he won't be going anywhere in the next couple of minutes'.  
  
'Neither will the sea,' Blackwall retorts, his tone growing even more abrupt and brusque than before.   
  
Then, he gets to his feet and passes his hands in a few swishing movements along the front of his thick, padded jacket. With this gesture, he not only tries to wipe off the brownish-green stains that have been left by the wet, mossy soil, but also attempts to hint to the stubborn dwarf that the conversation is over and it's time to finally get moving.  
  
Cadash continues to ignore him, however, and repeats, placing her hands on her hips,  
  
'I wanna see the sea! Right now!'  
  
This time, she speaks much louder and pronounces each word with just as much care as Blackwall; what is more, now there is an unmistakable sulky undertone in her voice. Her resemblance to a child grows stronger: not only in terms of her small stature, but also in terms of her behaviour, as she pushes her lower lip forward and taps her foot slightly against the ground - like a little girl demanding a new toy.  
  
Blackwall's face begins to redden - and, just is has been happening more and more frequently these days, it occurs to him that he was, perhaps, too hasty in going all storybook, his hand on his chest and his hair flapping about, and declaring that he shall walk with the Inquisition. Yes, granted there can be no worthier goal than joining a cause such as this - but back then, he had no way of knowing that the cause was championed by a spoiled, flighty, self-centered pint-sized accident-waiting-to-happen.  
  
From what he can gather, the Princess (that is the nickname Varric has given her) is the favoured daughter of a Carta clan leader... chieftain... thug lord... top nug... eh, whatever they are supposed to be called. She grew up somewhere in the Free Marches, surrounded by all the luxury her father's dirty money could possibly buy; she is still very fond of reminiscing (rather annoyingly) of gowns and parties and gilded pink horse harnesses (incidentally, Blackwall is still not sure what was supposed to be pink and gilded: the harnesses or the poor beasts themselves). Then, some other members of the Cadash family apparently got tired of putting up with the little... brat (he really wishes he could find a better word - but he can't), as the Princess barely lent a hand with their so-called business. So off she went to the Conclave to do some spying or smuggling or Maker knows what - and the rest of her misadventures is already making its way into history books.   
  
Why in blazes Andraste would get it into Her head to choose this particular dwarf as Her Herald, is a bloody mystery, to Blackwall at least. Maybe She was aiming for someone more worthy, but things got all mixed up, what with all the explosions and bodies cooking; maybe it wasn't Andraste at all, but some weird mind trick played by those freaky red Lyrium crystals; or maybe the Maker, the sly old codger that He is, had decided to lift the Cadash brat above all of His children in order to show her a path towards repentance - in order to help her overcome her own selfishness and set her interests aside for the sake of the cause; to wash herself clean of her family's wrongdoings, and turn into a better person? And - and if that was the case, maybe the same path could be opened to... to certain other people? If dwarven outlaws could earn forgiveness by cleansing the world of demons, then maybe...  
  
But no. Tempting as it is to believe in the Maker's wisdom, this last version is the least likely to be true. It has already been quite a while since the Herald rose from the ruins of the Temple, and there has been no change for the better. She is still a scatter-brained, childish egoist who does not give a nug's arse about anything that does not amuse her; and according to Cassandra, she was like that long before Blackwall joined the Inquisition.   
  
In fact, it was the Seeker who approached him one day, shortly after he settled in, with an odd, tortured look in her eyes, and asked him to start accompanying Cadash in all her journeys across the wilds, just as she, Cassandra, had done before him.  
  
'There are so many things I have to see to here,' the Seeker explained, pointedly looking away from Blackwall and rubbing her neck in embarrassment, 'But travelling with the Herald tends to... drain me of my strength. And at the same time, I cannot leave her alone, watched over only by an apostate, helpful as he may be - and by Varric! You - you have seen how she... behaves; someone has to...'  
  
'Babysit her?' Blackwall suggested.  
  
Cassandra let out a strangled sort of cough; Blackwall remembers thinking that he could almost hear the voice of the Chantry hammer against her skull, protesting against such a frivolous turn of phrase. To save the Seeker from further discomfort, he hurried to fill the awkward silence with a question,  
  
'So, you think that I am the right man to keep the Herald from doing something stupid?'  
  
To that, Cassandra replied, looking into his eyes for the first time during their conversation,  
  
'You are a Warden recruiter, are you not? I imagine you have had to knock some sense even into emptier heads than hers'.  
  
She had no way of knowing it, of course, but after she had phrased it like this, turning her down instantly became impossibly hard. And so, now he is stuck like this - babysitting. Cleaning up the awful messes that Cadash keeps leaving in her wake; trying to talk her out of crazy plans like trying to saddle a bear just for giggles, or stealing curtains from someone's home because she like their pattern and thinks they would make a nice dress; keeping her quest journal in order so she does not forget about her duty as the Herald; reminding her that he is here to fight by her side, not carry a tray with morning tea into her tent while stripped down to the waist... And somehow managing to live with the thought that, for all her... Cadashness, she is rather pretty, and somewhere deep, deep down, he actually would not have minded that tea-carrying thing.  
  
But right now, he cannot be bothered by her full lips, which she spends half the morning highlighting in fancy Orlesian make-up (following Lady Vivienne's advice with the blind devotion of a half-crazed cultist), or her eyes, which she keeps changing from blue to green to bright lilac during her frequent visits to the Black Emporium, or all the curves of her figure (Maker's bollocks, those curves!). Right now, all that matters is the mounting anger that he feels bubbling within his chest, growing stronger and stronger with each capricious stomp of Cadash's foot - until he can bear its seething heat no longer, and blurts out, looming over the dwarf like a roaring bear,  
  
'See here, you! You may have gotten all you wanted out of your bleedin' crime boss of a father - but that life is over! Done with! You are not the spoilt princess any longer, and I am not daddy dearest! You can't just prance off to watch the friggin' sea because you want to!'  
  
'Watch me!' Cadash cries shrilly, sticking out her tongue. 'I said I was gonna see the sea, and I am gonna see the sea, with or without you lot!'  
  
And before the stunned Warden can do anything about it, she begins a light-footed, dance-like descent down the winding path that leads right into the foamy maw of the tidal swell. This little thread of mud, winding among mossy rocks and white, skeleton-like dead trees, is too narrow for a bulkily built, heavily armoured warrior like Blackwall to follow - and the dwarf seems to know it, damn her; everything in her posture and gait, down to the way she swings her hips, seems to be mocking him.   
  
Having trotted about one quarter of the way, Cadash turns back and calls out, straining to make herself heard over the rumble of the sea,  
  
'You know, it's great that you are not my dad!'  
  
'Why?!' Blackwall barks, with his eyes darting from side in a desperate search for another way down.  
  
'Because I think you are hot!' she sings teasingly, and with a carefree wave of her hand, dissolves beyond the milky-white veil of mist that shrouds the sea shore.  
  
'Do be careful, my dear,' Vivienne, who has been observing the scene from the background with a mildly amused expression, steps forward and murmurs silkily into Blackwall's ear, 'I would hate to accidentally step on your jaw down there on the ground. The crunching noise would be most disgusting'.


	2. Chapter 2

As a surfacer, Cadash is more or less familiar with the mysterious element of water - this wondrous liquid, blue and glimmering and beautiful like refined Lyrium, and at the same time, not prone to exploding in your face or melting your brains when you come close to it, or drink it, or even throw yourself right into its refreshing stream. When she was a child, she even learned to swim - not a very common skill for a dwarf. She would spend days on end splashing about in a wild forest creek that skipped, with funny bubbling gurgles, over smooth, round boulders, right behind one of her clan's hideouts. Of course, the grown-ups would grumble every time she burst inside to grab a snack (somehow, swimming always made her hungry) and interrupted some important Carta 'business meeting': out of breath, with her hair matted and wet - and, when she was very young, even completely naked, because neither shyness or shame have ever been among her main character traits.  
  
They would twitch their moustaches in displeasure and lecture Papa about how bad it was to 'let the little duster run around instead of learning the trade'.   
  
'Look at her: she is worse than a wild elf, this one! And you expect her to take over from you?'  
  
'Big Baran's boy is about the same age as her, and he is already pulling his own weight!'  
  
'Sod it, Cadash, do something about the kid, will you?! This is supposed to be a secret meeting place, and her bloody nug-squeals will alert all the guards for miles around!'  
  
But old Cadash could never get a chance to utter as much as two words in his feisty offspring's defense, for a few moments after her sudden arrival, she would dash off, sticking her tongue out at the Carta elders, just like she just did at the grumpy Warden (before stuffing her mouth with the treats she had snatched till her cheeks began to bulge). And presently, the stillness of the forest would be disturbed by an even louder burst of splashes and giggles and the so-called 'nug-squeals'.  
  
But much as she loved playing with water, she never got to see the sea. Not for real. Not properly. Not up close. Back home in the Free Marches, she was never allowed near the shore, because Papa, like most other dwarves, was afraid of the booming, roaring mass of water that they would sometimes see from afar, crushing down onto the cliffs, again and again and again, hammering at the hard black rock with its huge, fuzzy white fists. And on her way to Ferelden, she did not get a chance to enjoy the ocean view either, as she was too busy sulking in the ship's hold, telling herself repeatedly how unfair everyone was to her, and trying to come up with creative insults that she could mentally hurl at meanies who had had the gut to accuse her of being a lazy good-for-nothing and to send her off to that stupid Conclave thing.  
  
But now - now she finally gets her chance. Now she can finally watch the tidal waves in all their glory, and see if they match the descriptions she read in books... Of course, given her usual choice of reading material, these descriptions were mostly provided as a metaphor for a woman's ultimate peak of pleasure during a sweltering night with a handsome stranger - but nonetheless, they have always made Cadash infinitely curious. And once something makes her curious, she firmly sets her mind on finding out as much about this something as possible; on coming up close to it, on poking it in every place within her reach, and if it's a relatively small something, huggling it close to her chest and dragging it back home with her (like it happened with Sweetiekins, the incredibly adorable undead horsie she met in the marshlands and, in spite of Cassandra's most vehement protests, lured all the way to Haven with a stale bread crust). And now, at long last, the part of this something will be played by the sea - the great, wonderful, boundless sea! Ooh, this is going to be so much fun! That poor bearded hottie (yes, she meant what she said) does not know what he is missing, bless his sulking eyebrows!  
  
Presently, the brownish muddy path gives way to a broad strip of glassy-smooth, white and grey pebbles, which wriggle and rock from side to side underneath the soles of Cadash's boots, as she strains her short, sturdy dwarven legs to the utmost, in one final trek towards the foaming brink of the great green-blue swell.  
  
As she waddles obstinately towards the sea, the thought that she has gotten what she wanted begins to sink in. No, not quite: the thought hits her - quite literally. The strong, sharp, salty breeze slaps her in the face with a force that makes her stagger - filling her nostrils with a prickling smell of brine and soggy seaweed, which sends a curious tang shooting through the back of her skull; and driving home a single exhilarating thought, which echoes within her mind in a steady rhythm, in tune with the roaring beat of the sea's gigantic heart:  
  
Here it is. Here it is. Here... It... Is!  
  
Cadash presses one heel hard against the other and then makes a swift stomping movement to shake herself free of her right boot; repeating the same motion for the left boot, she slides over the remaining pebbles, too excited to ignore the uncomfortable sensation as they leave an imprint on her bare soles - and, with a cheerful squelch, leaps right into the middle of a gigantic pile of seaweed, dragged ashore by the waves. The dwarf sinks into the sponge-like, cold green mass right up to her ankles; after kneading it with her feet for a little while, giggling at the sucking noises the green heap makes, she freezes on the spot, with her arms spread wide apart and her mouth gaping so wide that a sea gull could have easily flown into it... and stares. Oh, by her grandpappy's beard, there's so much here to stare at!  
  
No-one, even the most lyrium-crazed human, would have ever suspected that the self-serving, capricious little Cadash princess could have a poetic streak in her. And yet, there she is: motionless, quiet, utterly mesmerized; taking in the sight of the enormous waves that rise and fall before her eyes, capped by weightless, intricate crowns of foam, and gleam in the sun like glass likenesses of a mighty mountain chain, carved out by some crafty artisan, more skillful than all her kinsfolk put together... Only actual, stone mountains are way more boring: they stand still, never shifting - and these glass mountains sway in an endless, enchanting dance. One moment, they lift their foamy heads high up to the sky; and another, they bow down, letting other crystalline peaks rise beside them.  
  
And there comes a point, perhaps a few moments, and perhaps a few millennia after she started watching the sea, when one of these towering mountains looms right over the dwarf's head, casting a net of eerie blue glow on her upturned face, as the sun shines through the dense layer of water. For some reason that she has trouble explaining, Cadash feels her heart flutter, almost the exact way it does whenever those storybook handsome strangers are involved. Speaking of which...  
  
'Get back, you stupid dwarf! Now!'  
  
Giving Cadash's brain very little time to process what is going on, the magical bindings of the sea's enchantment are most rudely ripped apart by the loud, crunching sound of pebbles underneath heavy footfalls, and by an equally loud, urgent voice, which bellows hoarsely into the stunned dwarf's ear. A split second later, the funny seaweed pile vanishes into nothingness, as a pair of strong arms locks her into a vice-like snare and pulls her upwards and then, a few yards back, away from the tideline.   
  
That blasted Warden! He always has to ruin everything, doesn't he? Even Cassandra wasn't such a spoilsport!  
  
Cadash is more than ready to start eeling out of Blackwall's grasp, with a generous share of indignant spitting and cursing (oh, the poor unsuspecting hottie doesn't know how she can curse yet, she who grew up among smugglers and thieves) - but before she can let out as much as a 'Sod it!', something happens. Something that at first, seems bone-chillingly scary, but then turns out to be the funnest thing ever!  
  
The green glass mountain, after freezing for a fraction of a moment at its highest peak, suddenly melts into a torrent of gleaming liquid, dense and heavy like hot metal bubbling in a smithy, and at the same time cold as ice. And this torrent comes crashing down on the two tiny figures on the shore, sweeping them off their feet and hurtling them somewhere dark and wet and stiflingly airless, where their limbs seem to jumble together and dissolve in a burst of huge silvery bubbles, and all the world around them disappears beyond a rippling greenish veil that eats into their eyes.  
  
'Great pooping nugs!' Cadash finds herself thinking, as the wave keeps tossing her back and forth, like a mischievous child playing with a ball... No, that's not quite accurate: like one of her cousins, those 'proper Carta boys', when, as small children, they used a tiny, scared kitten instead of a toy for kicking and throwing to one another, laughing maliciously each time it let out a shrill, sob-like meow.   
  
She ended up giving each of these boys a black eye and carrying the kitten off to the nursery, where it lived happily for a few days, gorging itself on milk and tasty tidbits its rescuer 'looted' from the kitchen, and sharpening its claws against the furniture and some of the boring old toys that the Princess grew tired of almost faster than her Papa bought them for her. Then, Cadash Senior had the furry little creature removed for 'causing a mess', to which his weeping, swollen-eyed, runny-nosed daughter shrieked, 'Mess?! I will show you a mess!', and thrashed her own room with such destructive force that one might have thought she was possessed by a rage demon (if dwarves were not resistant to the influence of the Fade, that is). Ever since then, Papa always knew better than go against his daughter's will... And the banished kitty was rumoured to have found a new home in a neighbouring city, where is made friends with three mages, each crazier than the next, and all three of them characters in one of Varric's books - but that is quite a different story.  
  
'Great pooping nugs! I must be drowning!' Cadash screams inside her head, squirming like a worm in a jar of dirt, as the green veil all around her seems to sprout a pair of invisible hands, which grab her by the throat and begin to strangle her.  
  
But this thought does not linger: she has always been an obstinate little thing, used to getting her way no matter what. And she will get her way now, sod it all! She is not ready to die yet! Not by far! She still has Iron Bulls to meet, and Lord Seekers to spy on, and grumpy Grey Wardens to tease!  
  
Seeming to respond to Cadash's surge of stubborn anger, the unseen gash in her palm suddenly lets out a bright beam of green light, which cuts through the murky waters like a fine knife through a chunk of butter, highlighting the swirling clouds of sand that must have risen from the sea bed when the wave made everything go topsy-turvy - and more importantly, letting the dwarf see a cluster of large, roundish, blurred objects somewhere to her left, which seem much darker than the surrounding wetness. Rocks. These must be rocks. And - and rocks are supposed to lie on the sea bottom. And if that way is the bottom, then the other way must be the surface. Light. Air. Life.  
  
This chain of thoughts pounds inside Cadash's head in a feverish drum beat, as the stifling feeling gripping her chest and throat begins to grow almost unbearable. Just before her lungs shrivel and turn into moist dust under the weight of the entire Waking Sea, the dwarf turns over and musters all her remaining strength to push her stocky body upwards. Luckily for her, the sea seems to take pity on her little self, and the same wave that tried to ram her into the sea bed now wraps itself around her like a magical cloak and helps her soar higher and higher, towards the shimmering patch of silver, through which she can just barely see the welcoming, warm disk that those stupid Stone-worshipping dwarves fear for some reason. To them, catching sight of that bright, unblinking eye in the sky means facing the great and terrible unknown - and to her, right now, it means something far more important, and surely a gazillion times more fun. Not dying.  
  
With the wave's help, it does not take Cadash too long to burst out of the water, coughing and spluttering and - laughing. For now that the danger has passed, now that she can taste the fresh air and feel the sun on her face - this tumble into the heart of the sea seems just as exciting as her race with demons.  
  
'Hey!' she cries out, plopping onto her back and doing a few laps before the waves begin to swell again. 'Hey, this was great! Hey Blackwall, you wanna do another round? Blackwall? Blackwall, you nug-humper, where have you gone?!'  
  
Frowning anxiously, Cadash returns to an upright, buoy-like position among the waves (thank goodness she seems to have lost her jacket somewhere in the sea: it would have surely pulled her back down again... plus, it was stupid-looking anyway) and whirls around, churning the dense, cold layer of water energetically with her legs. Rising all around her, as far as the eye can see, are the same glassy peaks she saw from the shore; their rhythmic dance is completely uninterrupted by any alien objects, be it debris or resting sea birds or grouchy Wardens.  
  
But of course! She shouldn’t even be surprised! Before they left Haven to explore the wilds, the poor blighter strapped on that massive new chest plate she had looted for him in a rogue Templar camp somewhere. He seemed rather proud of it, too, and Cadash remembers giggling at the thought that this had to be because the chest plate came from her, and because deep down, the sweetie did not despise her as much as he was pretending to. And now this heavy armour piece must have dragged him down to the bottom - and while she is bobbing up and down here, basking in the sun, he is still among those blurry rocks somewhere, possibly unconscious, desperately out of air, and about to be squished like a sexy bearded tomato (say what?) by the weight of all that water. Annnnd... It looks like she will have to save his butt - instead of him saving hers, like he must have intended to when he pulled her back. Ah, the look on his face when she pulls him out is gonna be priceless!  
  
Still giggling to herself at that image, Cadash wriggles out of her shirt to get rid of the extra ballast, and then, plunging her arms elbow-deep into the sea, pulls off her breeches (Pity Sera isn't here! She seems to really appreciate her curves... Unlike some people). The dwarf's body has already adjusted to the water temperature, so she barely feels the cold sting her exposed skin as she flexes her shoulders in preparation for the dive, watching the foaming waves carry off her discarded clothes somewhere in the general direction of the Free Marches. Maybe Papa will see them, flapping about in the water, and think his precious Princess is dead, and grieve and wail and tear out his beard until she shows up again, in a dramatic, theatrical comeback? Ah, what fun!.. Except that even if he did find the clothes, old Cadash would never suspect they were hers: this get-up was issued to her by the Inquisition, and if given a choice, she would never have put on these silly, ugly clothes. Perhaps now, after the hungry waves gobble up her shirt and breeches, she will be allowed to get herself a new outfit - in pink, like she requested!  
  
With a mocking farewell wave at her floating gear, Cadash fills her lungs with a tremendous draught of air, and, breaking through the water's glass-like surface, propels herself towards the bottom. The current tugs at her smallclothes, trying to pull them off and whisk them away like it did with the rest of her outfit. Well, let it, she reasons. It will only add up to the pricelessness of Blackwall's expression.


	3. Chapter 3

This time, Cadash's magic hand behaves like normal, and the skin of her palm remains untouched by any swirls of green light - but it's not that big a deal, because, now that she knows the general location of up and down, she does not really need a guiding light. She just keeps pushing obstinately through the water, down and down and down, and bulging her eyes (which must make her look like an exceedingly sexy blonde fishie) till she thinks she can see the rocks again. When that moment comes, Cadash slows down and, to make absolutely certain, reaches into the nothingness in front of her and gropes around, till her fingertips brush against something large and solid... Nah, not exactly solid, though: the... underwater thingie she has stumbled upon seems to be coated in a soft topping of slime - but once she scrubs it off a little, she can get a feel of the stone.   
  
All-rightey then. She has hit the bottom, so to speak. But there's no sign of Blackwall; he just has to go and make things difficult for her (here, she would have let out a scornful snort, but she has to think about her air supply!).  
  
For a short while longer, the dwarf continues to mentally chastise the troublesome Warden, while feeling the outline of the rocks with her hands. All her explorations yield no findings other than more stone and slime (which must actually be some sort of underwater plant life, making itself comfy... She would have probably given in to her adventurer instincts and harvested the stuff for potions - if she had some other inventory to store it in other than her underwear). Then, the tense, gripping sensation in her chest slowly begins to return, and she has no choice but to allow the sea to spit her out of its depths, together with a generous helping of foam.  
  
Once on the surface, Cadash washes her hands clean off all the slime traces (the fruit Vivienne's influence: the hand-washing, that is, not the slime... though Blackwall might probably argue) and paddles a small distance away from the spot where she made her first plunge. Having done that, the dwarf sinks into the waves again - and this time, her probing fingers find a patch of sand, with curious gulleys and ridges traces across it by the ever-shifting water, and some tiny but nasty critter that tries to bite her.  
  
Cadash cannot make out what it is, but decides (just because she can: her usual reason for deciding things) that it has to be a blobfish, of the kind she has recently read about in a book about the most bizarre fauna of Thedas, which she borrowed from the stash Researcher Minaeve and Team Tranquil saved from their old Circle. Oh by the Maker's armpit hair (since she is the Herald and all, she might as well cuss like an Andrastian, right?) - how she laughed and laughed and laughed when she saw the illustration! And, having imagined the ridiculous little creature, lurking down there on the sea bed, among the tiny sand ridges, Cadash decides to nickname it Solas.  
  
It's not that she harbours any particular dislike towards the egg-headed old elf - on the contrary, he has been quite a good, patient teacher, always ready to answer her countless questions about spirits and magic and far-off lands and old legends. Apparently fascinated by her utterly un-dwarven connection to the Fade, he has been helping her get the hang of using her glowing hand thingy; and she must say that as a mentor, he has, so far, been holding up far better than all the poor sods Papa once hired, back when he got it into his head that, with all the money the Lyrium business had gotten him, his girl deserved to be educated like a refined lady. It goes to Solas' credit to say that he has survived through all the practical jokes and tricks that would normally send Cadash's tutors running for the hills, screaming their heads off - and some of these pranks were 'improved' by Sera, so that's double points in the egg-head's favour!..  
  
She does not play jokes on him quite as often as she used to when she just got to Haven, though: Solas received a huge reverence boost in Cadash's eyes when he beat Blackwall at diamondback, forcing the good Warden to give up not only all the money he had on him, but also his clothes. As the flustered, coughing loser was making his way stealthily back to his quarters, the snow creaking shrilly underneath his bare, bright-red heels, Cadash got a good view of him from behind a nearby haystack. Sure, he tried covering himself up with a wooden bucket that he had grabbed somewhere along the way - but instead of loosening it up a little and using it as a skirt (which is what Cadash would have done in his place, probably with a lot of hip-swinging involved), he just pressed it awkwardly against his body below the stomach, leaving his back completely exposed! And the little spy in the hay more than approved of the sight that she beheld - oh rawr, all that skin and muscle and hair! Absolutely dreamy!  
  
She also approved (though she never told Blackwall) of the chance to play healer's apprentice that she got when, shortly after the diamondback incident, the silly old Warden came down with a fever - the nasty malady must have crept into his sweet wooly chest when he was marching through the snowy village with nothing but that hapless bucket to shield him from the piercing cold, and it only got worse because he was too ashamed to admit that he was falling into the clutches of the most common, most childish sickness, and concealed it from everyone else, refusing to take any healing potions, right up to the point when he started getting dizzy and losing focus in battle.   
  
Eventually, Solas got wind of what was going on and, obviously more than a little guilty over the whole haha-I-won-now-strip-down thing, almost literally pushed the grumbling human into the nearest bed available. Ooh, and then, Cadash came in! She volunteered to help the egg-head after the friendly neighbourhood alchemist slammed his door shut, yelling, 'For the last time: I am a scholar, not a nurse! Deal with it yourselves! I thought the Grey Wardens were not supposed to get sick anyway!' and all that silly rot.   
  
And goodness, she had lots of fun trotting back and forth with soup bowls and elfroot extracts and teasing Blackwall about his crimson, runny nose... But that is quite another story.  
  
In short, Cadash respects Solas as much as she is capable of respecting anyone at all: for teaching her, for passing the trial of pranks, and for providing her (perhaps inadvertently) with new ways of being a thorn in Blackwall's side. But he is one serious blighter, that elf: and serious blighters doom themselves  to being caricatured... And a blobfish seems like a perfect choice of image for that baldie!  
  
The thought of Solas the blobfish proves too much for Cadash to bear; and as her desperate struggle with laughter causes enormous bubbles to start bursting out of her nose and mouth in long, grapevine-like garlands, she has to turn around and float towards the sun again.  
  
But very soon, this urge to giggle, along with silly Solas caricatures, fades into a vague, hazy memory - something that belongs to the distant past, to another, bygone era. For both her third dive and her fourth prove just as fruitless as the first two - and apart from the already familiar choking grasp of the sea, which tightens each time she starts to run out of air, Cadash begins to feel something else. Something... something that she has felt only once before in her entire life.  
  
It happened quite some time ago, when she was still in her teens: Papa left on a very important smuggling expedition, with a ridiculously elaborate plan that he and the other Carta dwarves had been devising for longer than she cares to remember - and he would not come back for days and days and days. At first, the little Cadash offspring was carefree and cheerful as usual, dancing about the house and daydreaming about the lavish gifts Papa would surely smother her in upon his return - but then, as time went by and no news of him came, she grew restless and impatient, and paced across her room, her arms folded on her chest, breathing heavily with anger at that stupid, stupid old dwarf for not showing up when he promised. That anger made her eyes well up with tears, dense and misty and scorchingly hot - but after she spent some more time all alone in the empty house, waiting to hear Papa's footsteps and only being stunned by complete, overwhelming silence, the tears grew cold. Cold as ice, seeping through into her very heart till she felt it freeze - she could almost picture the icicles that dangled off her ribs on the inside of her chest. And with the cold, came that... that thing. That feeling. The very feeling that is overcoming her right now, as she searches for Blackwall in vain among the lifeless, indifferent waves - which have somehow lost their vibrant green colour and glassy glimmer, and have turned leaden-grey.   
  
It is developing much faster than when she was young, growing stronger almost by the second - but its nature, its... symptoms remain the same. She is certain of it now. Just like when she was waiting for Papa, Cadash finds herself almost literally choking on the sharp, jagged crystals of rime that coat her stomach and creep up all the way towards her throat, making the entire inside of her body from the waist upwards contract and throb with pain.   
  
In this condition, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to keep up with the waves, which seem to have developed a rather annoying habit of sneaking up on her and rolling over her head, filling her mouth and nose with prickly brine. Her ceaseless paddling slows down, and her mind begins to wander away from her underwater quest, till she cannot focus on anything else but a single question, which she repeats to herself over and over and over again:  
  
Papa came back eventually - but what if _he_ doesn't? What if? What if? What if?..  
  
Yes - what if? Blackwall has been down there for Maker knows how long, and as minutes pass by and she keeps splashing about in vain, this leaves her with less and less hope of finding him... alive.   
  
Sod it, what a frustrating, ridiculous, pointless death that would be for someone like him! His life should have ended fathoms underground, somewhere in the cavernous bowels of the Deep Roads, where, when the 'right time' came, he should have gone, all noble and self-sacrificey, like a true storybook hero, and fought to his last breath, taking as many darkspawn with him as he could - like he is supposed to, like every Grey Warden is supposed to, even that ‘dearest friend’ Leliana keeps talking about keeps talking about: King Alistair's infamous elven mistress... Hey, even the king himself - he was a Warden too, wasn't he?   
  
But no, instead of being properly heroic, poor dear old Blackwall is dooming himself to a completely different fate: drowning in the sea, not even that far from shore; all because of some chest plate that turned out just a little bit too heavy - and because of some stupid dwarf that refused to get back when he told her to!  
  
This last thought shatters her apprehensive stupor, just as she has seen Cassandra rush forward and, with a single well-aimed shield bash, shatter the bad guys that have been frozen by Vivienne into blueish-white, grotesquely contorted statues. The dwarf's eyebrows (plucked with meticulous precision, under the supervision of the Orlesian mage) slide together, till a deep crease of skin appears between them. Her energy flooding back in, Cadash dodges an encroaching wave and braces herself for yet another dive, muttering with fierce determination,  
  
'I am not stupid!'   
  
She repeats these words inside her mind like a chant, even as she lowers herself into the heaving mass of water and makes her way towards the sea bed.  
  
'I am not stupid! I am not stupid! And this blighted human had better be alive - because if he isn't, it’s gonna be my fault - and I will bloody crush him for that! I hate, hate, hate it when I get blamed for something... Especially when I get blamed by myself'.  
  
Her vehement inner monologue, once again, wakes up the Mark. She remembers Serah Blobfish explaining to her that magic is largely driven by emotion, and that many mages, especially young or poorly trained, positively stagger with uncontrollable surges of raw energy from the Fade whenever they lose their heads over something. And apparently, the little bit of that bizarre, demon-spider-filled green place that is stuck in her palm, is behaving the same way, too. Sizzling and spitting and bursting with light every time she gets angry - especially with herself, by the looks of it. That is sure gonna be something to write home about... 'Hey, I've got a magic hand; I get pissed and it glows!'  
  
Well, at least this odd little glowing scar across her palm is good for something when she is not slamming it into Rifts. It is proving to be a very handy torch - a little bit like that Veilfire thing Solas lit up in an old elven ruin. Its shimmering, eerie light tears through the underwater gloom, snatching out a small circle of sand, with what looks like another rock slumped in its middle. Although... Hang on - rocks are not supposed to glint, are they? Definitely not the way this rock just glinted - in a bright, metallic sort of way, as though winking at Cadash, beckoning to her to come closer...  
  
Swatting absent-mindedly at the family of tiny fishies that hurries by, tickling her face, Cadash darts towards the winking rock - and, as soon as she gets close, lets out another jet of bubbles, in a tremendous, wheezing gasp.  
  
For the source of the glint turns out to be just what she suspected - no, what she hoped it would be, hoped against all hope, not even daring to confess to herself what she was thinking. It's that blasted chest plate - now bearing a sizeable dent along the middle, which makes it appear as though it is smirking. Cadash wags her finger warningly at the smug, cheeky metal scrap (seriously, what does it think it is, taunting her like that after she went through so much trouble because of it?), before rushing off upwards to compensate for that bubbling gasp of hers.  
  
Having refilled her lungs with a swift swig of fresh air, she lowers herself into the sea for what (she tells gleefully to herself) is going to be one last time. No more pointless diving for her, oh no - she has found the chest plate! And the chest plate is bound to still have Blackwall inside it - and Blackwall is bound to still be alive! Yes, yes he is! She refuses to allow herself to think otherwise - lest that horrible cold feeling returns.  
  
Sure enough, upon closer inspection (this time, a clumsy, groping one, carried out almost in complete darkness, for the silly, volatile Mark has decided to go out again) Cadash discovers a familiar shape, packed tightly inside the armour piece - and, as far as she can tell, lodged in between two underwater boulders. It's a delightfully big, soft shape in a thick padded vest, which inevitably draws the dwarf's tightly pursed lips into a small smile, as she passes her hands along it, trying to figure out for how long that lovely strong chest and those big arms will last.  
  
Her heart makes a slight jolt when, suddenly, the soaked cloth ends and bare skin begins. The Warden's face, peeking out among strands of billowing, seaweed-like hair, is unsettlingly cold to the touch, and so pale that it seems to glow in the dark - almost replacing Cadash's magic hand as the light source. But she must not think about it too much - or she'll get distracted and run out of air again, and leave him down here to catch her breath. She doesn't want that. She doesn't want to leave him all alone, down here in the dark, trapped with no escape. And she won't.   
  
Nodding her head to emphasize her firmness and her serious intentions (or... at least thinking she has nodded her head, because it's rather hard to tell while being stuffed inside all this water), the dwarf sets to work. Tilting the unconscious human as far forward as she can, with the rocks and the armour getting in the way, she thrusts her arm behind his back, feeling for the fastenings that hold his chest plate in place. This proves to be more than a bit of a challenge: for even though it does not take her too long to locate these short, broad straps of soggy leather, loosening them requires a tremendous effort.  
  
Suspended above the sea bed, with her legs flapping about madly to keep balance, Cadash grips at the armour fastenings with all her might - and pulls, one, two, three, she doesn't really know how many times; the strain makes her heartbeat speed up - and a racing heart makes her hungry for air. Air that is somewhere up there, far out of her reach.  
  
Her temples pounding, her chest devoured by pain, Cadash still forces herself to hold her breath - and to keep pulling, right until the leather straps slip out of their metal buckles and the thrice-cursed armour piece comes loose. But that is just half of the job: she still has to somehow get Blackwall to the surface - and the blasted human turns out to be heavy like a sack of coals. Even after she peels him out of his armour, as if he were a huge, hairy, extremely uncooperative orange (hey, why does she always end up comparing him to random fruit?), she has to muster all of the strength that still remains in her air-drained  body, in order to get him out of the crack between the rocks, and then lift him slightly from the seabed. The blighter really has to be thankful for her being a proper dwarven woman, and not one of those half-starved matchstick elves, who look like a gust of wind might snap them in half - regardless of gender. If she had noodle limbs like theirs, she... would never... be able to... hoist him up...  
  
Like the outlines of the boulders down below, the thoughts that trail through Cadash's head grow vague and blurred, melting together into wobbly lumps and then dissolving in the pitch blackness that has begun surrounding her, creeping in from all directions, blocking out the few things her dimming, blank eyes can still see, and turning her skull into a useless, cracking pot, with black tar sloshing inside it. She can no longer tell if she is still trying to drag Blackwall to safety; she could have let go of him, but she is too worn out to care. All that matters is that her lungs have been squeezed into a tight knot, like a couple of towels; and that her heart, which, but moments ago, seemed to be hammering against her ribcage in the wild frenzy of a convict screaming for freedom, is now slowing down - as if it has given up on its stubborn little owner, who thought that she would be able to survive for so long without air. Soon, it will come to a complete halt, and there will be nothing but blackness, for ever and ever and ever.  
  
This time, Cadash is too weak to pull herself together, or to swear in anger, wakening the Mark to light her way. But those who, like silly old Cassandra, believe that this green cut in the dwarf's palm was made by a higher power, would have now rolled up their eyes and praised the heavens: for it seems that Cadash, the unlikely Herald of Andraste, is in for yet another impossible escape from death. The sea, the great, mysterious, wonderful sea, locks its grasp around the Warden and his would-be rescuer, and carries them forth with the tide; and soon, its great, foam-gloved hands gently place the two limp bodies next to one another on the shore, framing them carefully in strands of seaweed, as though they were a couple of precious museum exhibits: the half-naked dwarf and the human in a lopsided vest with remainders of dark-green slime still sticking to it. Then, the sea withdraws, its job done, leaving a silvery bubbling trail in its wake.  
  
  
  
With a loud, wheezing noise, not unlike a bronto's roar, Cadash comes to her senses. She is not sure what exactly has made her open her eyes - but the moment she does so, she finds herself overcome by a very nasty feeling, as though all the pebbles in the world have gathered together and are holding a who-is-sharper contest underneath her bare back. Not to mention that she wants to retch - really, really wants to retch. Giving in to the gut-wrenching spasm, the dwarf rolls over to the side and tears her mouth wide open, choking on a slurping, gruel-like mixture of sand, brine, and tiny bits of seaweed. After all of this muck leaves her body (Ugh, she swears she hasn't barfed this much during all her after-girls'-night hangovers combined!), Cadash is left with an odd, light-headed sort of feeling, and a biting shiver crawling underneath her skin. Oh, and there is a sharp, metallic aftertaste in her mouth, too - got to wonder where that came from...   
  
The taste intensifies when Cadash attempts to sit up, grunting and squinting groggily to prevent the sea shore from spinning around her - and then, suddenly, she feels two little streams of warm liquid rush down her face. At first, she thinks it's just her nose running after splashing about in cold water - but when she lifts her hand to her face and dips her fingers in the stuff, she spots two red droplets blossoming on the tips of her index and middle finger. Ouch. Is that a side effect of being underwater for so long? It has to be - but if Blackwall comes to right now (provided that that hazy brown spot by her side is Blackwall and not a sea lion or something) and sees her sitting next to him, undressed and with a nosebleed splattering down onto her chest, he just might take things the wrong way... Though, that said, in her eyes, it would have been the preferable way. Definitely.  
  
Oh - and speaking of Blackwall! She had better not forget to check on him! The silly Warden still needs her help! And he had better not turn out to be a sea lion!  
  
Wiping off the blood with the back of her hand, Cadash swivels her head in search for her unfortunate adventuring companion. The brown spot does prove to be him, after all, and not a sea lion; he is lying on his back, with his hair spread all over the pebbles around his head, forming a sort of wavy, black-and-silver halo; his eyes are closed and appear to have sunk into deep, ashen shadow underneath his eyebrows; and his wonderfully hairy chest, which is just peeking through a tear in his vest's collar, does not move an inch.  
  
'Not breathing, huh?' Cadash mutters to herself, dragging her rather uncooperative body closer to the Warden's. 'You had better change your mind!'  
  
With these words of warning, she straddles Blackwall's chest as best she can, and, undoing some of the fastenings to make the gap in his vest bigger, presses her hands down, as she has seen Cassandra do while reviving companions in battle (minus the whole being-almost-naked thing, of course). In the middle of her machinations, something seems to prod her through the fabric of her smallclothes; the dwarf lets out a deafening snort of laughter, the tips of her ears flushing with a rude thought - but then, she realizes that it's just the Warden's belt buckle, which has slid down and a little bit sideways. The discovery makes her shoulders hunch down in disappointment - that other, improper thing would have meant that Blackwall is alive and well... Not to mention... other... implications. Right. Back to work.  
  
After another round of fierce pushing, Cadash succeeds in squeezing out some murky, greyish water, which trickles out of the corner of the Warden's mouth into his beard. The dwarf grins from ear to ear and says smugly, spurring the human slightly with her heels,  
  
'Aha! Gotcha! Now you are gonna start spitting out all that slime, and...'  
  
To her utmost surprise, Blackwall responds to her with monotonous chanting in some language she has never heard. Or rather, so it seems to her for about one second - because the next second, she realizes that the Warden's lips are not moving. With a small gulp, Cadash looks over her shoulder - and finds herself staring right into the face (or lack thereof) of some grim-looking fellow, tall enough to be a human, wrapped in an inky black robe with an enormous, funnel-shaped hood. To make things even more unsettling, the fellow has luggage - an enormous, thick leather-bound volume, which appears to be hovering magically right underneath his left hand. Shrinking her head into her shoulders, Cadash watches, as though hypnotized, as the hooded stranger's fingers twitch impatiently inches away from an open page - which is covered in a net of crawling, swirling, glowing symbols that positively scream, 'Hello! I am an evil blood magic spell!'  
  
Ah, what perfect company to entertain a girl while she is unarmed and in her undies! And, of course, Blackwall seems to prefer lounging about, semi-conscious and gargling on sea water, instead of doing his job as the tank of the party!  
  
Sodding humans.


End file.
